Andi Oliver - "I always feel terrible when someone has to leave the show"

Virgin Radio

30 Jan 2023, 11:11

The 'Great British Menu' presenter speaks on the coming new series.

Great British Menu presenter Andrea 'Andi' Oliver popped into The Graham Norton Radio Show With Waitrose this weekend to tell us all about the new series of the beloved cooking show, which begins tomorrow (Tuesday, January 31st) at 8pm on BBC Two.

And it's a truly brilliant theme this time round - as Paddington Bear turns 65, the new series will celebrate Britain's best animation and illustration!

"Everyone just adores Paddington Bear," she says, "and obviously, with the Queen passing, there's an added emotional connection with everybody. So it's a beautiful thing. There will be lots of marmalade involved! But it's a lovely brief because it means all the chefs really reach back to their childhood. And they reach back to things that are really emotive for them. Things that really matter to them. And that's great because food tastes better when you mean it. Food tastes better when it means something."

And on that emotional tip, Andi says she prefers being the presenter of Great British Menu to being a judge... though she has struggled to leave the mentality of her former role behind.

"It's a different job being a judge," she says, "because you are less emotionally invested, I think. And you kind of have to be because you have to be able to be that step removed from it so that you can really, honestly, genuinely go through each tiny little bit of the dish forensically. I still do that in my head, but now because I've been with the chefs all week, I'm emotionally cheering them on and really wanting them to do well. And if they don't do well, it's absolutely heartbreaking.

"When they do well, it's absolutely wonderful. But I always feel terrible when someone has to go."

On April 27th, Andi releases her first ever cookbook, entitled The Pepperpot Diaries: Stories From My Caribbean Table. She describes it as a "cookbook diary hybrid".

She says, "Basically, during the second lockdown, in the bit where you could move around, I went to Antigua. When we got off the plane they said, "Oh, we changed the travel advice and you have to stay for three months." I mean, what a terrible bind! I couldn't believe my luck. So I started writing because I'm not one of those people who can just lie down and do nothing, so the book takes the form of a diary, and a journal, and heritage recipes that use old ingredients that perhaps I grew up with, like tamarind and plantain and all sorts of stuff. I had the time of my life, essentially, for three months!"

Sounds delicious. Once again, we're going to have to go have a sandwich or something...

Listen to The Graham Norton Radio Show every Saturday AND Sunday from 9:30 am on Virgin Radio or catch up on-demand here.